{"id":1096,"date":"2019-03-11T22:34:14","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T22:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1096"},"modified":"2019-10-21T15:07:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T14:07:58","slug":"economic-causes-of-the-gulf-war","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/economic-causes-of-the-gulf-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic causes of the Gulf War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
November 1990, U.K.<\/a><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
The Prussian militarist Clausewitz declared that war was “nothing but\n the continuation of politics by other means” . He would have been \nnearer the truth if he had said that war was the continuation of \neconomics by other means. Since the onset of capitalism five hundred \nyears ago wars have been caused by conflicts of economic interest over \nsources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and \nstrategic points and places to secure and protect these.  The \nthreatening war in the Middle East is no exception to this rule, and in \nfact strikingly confirms the socialist analysis of the cause of war.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAlthough it is rather obvious that what is at stake is oil, both sides \ntry to play this down. U.S. President George Bush and British Prime \nMinister Margaret Thatcher say that Saddam Hussein is a dictator whose \nexpansionist ambitions must be checked in the interests of world peace. \nSaddam Hussein says that he has struck a blow for Arab Nationalism by \neliminating a state tailor-made by Western imperialism to suit its \ninterests. Saddam Hussein is a dictator and he has taken over a state \ncreated by Western imperialism, but it is not for these reasons that the\n West is preparing to go to war. The Western powers tolerate dictators \nwhen it suits their interests. In fact they tolerated, financed and \narmed Saddam Hussein himself when they needed someone to prevent Iran \nunder Khomeini coming to dominate the Gulf area and threaten their oil \nsupplies. And they tolerated the Indonesian invasion and annexation of \nEast Timor in 1975 as they had that of Goa by India in 1961 without \nshrieking that world peace and order were threatened. The difference was\n that, while in East Timor and Goa only carrots grew, Kuwait is situated\n right in the middle of the world’s largest and lowest-cost oilfields.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oil and Empire<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nBritish imperialism made Kuwait, which remained nominally part of the \nOttoman Empire, a “protectorate” in 1899. This was done not for its oil \nresources, which nobody even suspected existed, but for its strategic \nposition.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAt the time Imperial Germany, already squaring up to Britain in the \ninter-imperialist rivalry which eventually broke out as the First World \nWar, was planning to build a railway that would extend from Europe \nthrough Turkey and Mesopotamia down to the Persian Gulf. This was the \nBerlin to Baghdad railway of history book fame and, if completed, would \nhave represented an alternative and rival to the British-controlled Suez\n Canal as a trade route to and from the Indian Ocean and the Far East. \nKuwait, a small port and pearl-fishing centre at the northern end of the\n Gulf ruled by a sheik called Al-Sabah, was the likely terminus for the \nGerman project. So it was “protected” by British imperialism, to thwart \nGerman imperialism.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOil, however, was soon discovered near Kuwait, first in Persia and then \nin Mesopotamia. Britain acquired complete control of the Persian \noilfields but those of Mesopotamia had to be shared with Germany. As \nTurkey had entered the First World War on the side of German \nimperialism, the British and French imperialists made plans to carve up \nthe Ottoman Empire amongst themselves in the event of victory. A secret \nagreement in 1916 gave what is now Syria, Lebanon and the northern part \nof  Iraq to France, and Palestine and what is now Jordan and the \nsouthern part of Iraq to Britain.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAlmost as soon as the agreement had been signed, someone in the British \nForeign Office realised that a ghastly mistake had been made: northern \nMesopotamia contained the oilfields of Mosul and Kirkuk. The French were\n persuaded on some pretext to agree to a rectification, and after the \nwar the spoils were divided along the lines of today’s Middle Eastern \nstates. Iran is just as much an artificial creation of Western \nimperialism as Kuwait, though its ruling class ought to be grateful that\n perfide Albion outwitted French imperialism, otherwise its northern \noilfields would be in Syria.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Britain creates Kuwait<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nKuwait remained a British protectorate when Iraq became an independent \nstate in 1932, but the new Iraqi rulers were not happy about being \ndeprived of a secure outlet to the Persian Gulf. A glance at a map of \nIraq will show that it only has two possible outlets to the sea. The \nfirst is via the Shatt al Arab river, but this is shared with Iran. The \nsecond is via an inlet to the west, access to which is controlled by two\n islands belonging to Kuwait.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAt one time\u2014in the fifties when Iraq under a pro-Western king and \ngovernment seemed firmly anchored in the Western camp through its \nmembership of CENTO, the Middle Eastern equivalent of NATO\u2014British \nofficials considered making some concessions to Iraq on this issue, but \nthis was blocked by the Al-Sabah dynasty. The Emir of Kuwait, which \nsince 1946 had become an oil-producing area with huge reserves, proved \nto be the better judge of his interests. On 14 July 1958\u00b8 the king of \nIraq and his pro-western prime minister were overthrown and killed in a \nmilitary coup led by pro-Nasser army officers. The British Foreign \nMinister, Selwyn Lloyd, rushed to Washington to discuss the crisis. On \n19 July he sent a secret telegram, recently released under the \nthirty-year rule, to Macmillan, the Prime Minister, in which he \nreported:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nI am sure that you are considering anxiously the problem of Kuwait. One \nof the most reassuring features of my talks here has been the complete \nUnited States solidarity with us over the Gulf. They are assuming that \nwe will take firm action to maintain our position in Kuwait.  They \nthemselves are disposed to act with similar resolution in relation to \nthe Aramco oilfields in the area of Dhahran, although the logistics are \nnot worked out. They assume that we will also hold Bahrain and Qatar, \ncome what may. They agree that at all costs these oilfields must be kept\n in Western hands. The immediate problem is whether it is good tactics \nto occupy Kuwait against the wishes of the ruling family.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nSelwyn Lloyd went on to discuss the options, including turning Kuwait \nfrom a protectorate into a colony, i.e., annexing it as Iraq has just \ndone, but rejected this in favour of another option:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On balance, I feel it very much to our advantage to have\n a kind of Kuwaiti Switzerland where the British do not exercise \nphysical control. (Independent, 13 September).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\nThis was the solution eventually adopted and in 1961 Kuwait was granted \n“independence” in the sense of no longer being subject to direct \n“physical control” by Britain. Iraq immediately moved its troops up to \nthe border\u2014and British troops had to be rushed in to prop up the \nartificial Middle Eastern “Switzerland” that their government had just \nset up.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nKuwait survived and its rulers prospered. Thanks to revenues from oil, \nthe ruling Al-Sabah dynasty became one of the richest families in the \nworld, overtaken only by fellow oil nouveaux riches the Saudi royals and\n the Sultan of Brunei, and far surpassing other dynastic billionaires \nlike the Queen of England and Juliana of the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Shatt al Arab War<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nIraq meanwhile also developed its oil resources and revenues, which were\n mainly used to build up its armed forces so strengthening the grip of \nthe military on the state. Iraqi politics came to consist of coups and \nplots and counter-plots amongst the leaders of the armed forces. Out of \nthese Saddam Hussein emerged as top dog in 1979.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe current Iraqi regime, though in fact a military dictatorship \npursuing the national interests of Iraqi capitalism, has as its ideology\n the Pan-Arab Nationalism of the Baath party. Iraq, however, is by no \nmeans purely an Arab country since up to a quarter of its population \nspeak Kurdish rather than Arabic, and the attempt to impose Baathism in \nthe 1970s led to a revival of the armed revolt of Kurdish nationalists \nin the North of the country, where the oilfields of Mosul and Kirkuk are\n situated\u2014which explains why Iraq has been prepared to use all means, \nincluding, more recently, poison gas, to retain the area.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThis revolt was encouraged as a means of weakening Iraq by the Shah of \nIran, whose country had a long-standing dispute with Iraq over the \ncontrol of the Shatt al Arab river. The dispute went back to the time of\n the first commercial exploitation of Iranian oil before the First World\n War and concerned Iran’s demand for access and protection for its \nbordering oil wells and installations.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Shatt al Arab is the name of the river formed by the confluence of \nthe Euphrates and the Tigris. From the Iranian town of Khorramshahr to \nthe sea it forms the frontier between Iraq and Iran. Safe, free \nnavigation in this waterway is absolutely vital to Iraq as its main \nport, Basra, can only be reached via the Shatt al Arab. Without this, \nIraq becomes virtually a land-locked country, dependent on other \ncountries for the  transit of its imports and the export of its main \nproduct, oil. Its vulnerability in this respect was well illustrated by \nthe ease and speed with which the pipelines via Turkey and Saudi Arabia \nwere closed to enforce United Nations sanctions (and by the fact that a \nthird pipeline via Syria had long been closed by the Syrian government \nfor political reasons).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Shah’s strategy worked and in 1975 a treaty was signed between Iraq \nand Iran under which Iraq ceded control of the eastern side of the Shatt\n al Arab to Iran in return for Iran withdrawing its support for the \nKurdish nationalists.  When, however, the Shah was overthrown in 1979 \nand Iran began to slip into chaos, the tables were turned. The Iraqi \nruling class decided to use the occasion to attack Iran and regain \ncontrol of the whole of the Shatt al Arab and perhaps more. So began, in\n 1980, one of the longest and bloodiest wars of modern history. The war \nlasted eight years and led to the death of about one million people\u2014all \nfor control of a strategic commercial waterway.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Western powers were happy to let the war go on, using Iraq to block \nany Iranian take-over of the Gulf region. When, however, Iran began to \nattack shipping in the Gulf in 1987, the West was forced to send its own\n taskforce of warships and warplanes to the area to protect the free \nflow of its oil supplies.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why Iraq invaded Kuwait<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nThe war ended in a stalemate, with Iraq in control of some Iranian \nterritory but with the port of Basra blocked. This put pressure on Iraq \nto turn to its other possible outlet to the sea: that blocked by Kuwaiti\n control of the islands of Warba and Bubiyan.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Iraq-Iran war strikingly confirmed a point made in 1938 by the Iraqi\n Foreign Minister in discussions with his British counterpart:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iraq would like to rent a piece of land from Kuwait for \nestablishing a deep harbour and connecting it to the Basra railway line,\n since Iraq could not guarantee navigational safety on the Shatt al-Arab\n in the case of an Iraq-Iran dispute. (Quoted in press release on “The \nPolitical Background to the Current Events” issued by the Iraqi Press \nOffice, London, on 12 September,  pp 16-17).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\nThe  present Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, has made it quite clear\n that Iraq’s motives for taking over Kuwait were economic, commercial \nand strategic. In a letter on The Kuwait Question sent to all foreign \nministers on 4 September he denounced Britain for having created and \nsustained since 1899 an “artificial entity called Kuwait” which cut off \nIraq from “its natural access to the waters of the Arab Gulf”, and went \non to say that all Iraqi governments since the establishment of the \nstate of Iraq in 1924 had insisted that Iraq must have Kuwait to \nguarantee its commercial and economic interests and provide it with the \nrequirements necessary for the defence of its national security.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nKing Hussein of Jordan brought out the same point, in a message \nbroadcast on the American TV network CNN on 22 September 1990, when he \nsaid that Iraq had been seeking:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
an agreement with Kuwait that would secure it an independent access to the sea which it considers of vital national interest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\nThe phrase “vital national interest”, invoked by both sides in the \nthreatening war, is the key as in the mealy-mouthed language of \ndiplomacy this refers to issues over which states are prepared to go to \nwar in the last resort.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIraq emerged from its war with Iran with a huge financial debt and a \ndesperate need for money to pay for reconstruction. With oil revenues as\n virtually its only source of income, Iraq favoured using the OPEC \ncartel to push up the price of oil by restricting its supply. Since this\n was in the interests of a number of other OPEC members, including Iran,\n some move in this direction was agreed. However, two countries in \nparticular\u2014Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates\u2014failed to apply this. \nThey consistently exceeded their quotas, so preventing the price of oil \nfrom rising.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe reason why the emirs and sheiks and sultans of the Gulf pursued this\n policy was not shortsightedness or cussedness. It was because it had \nbecome in their economic interest to do so. The Al-Sabah family had not \nwasted all its riches on horse-racing, gambling and gold-fitted \nbathrooms. Most of it had been re-invested in capitalist industry and \nfinance in the West, so much so in fact that a large part of Kuwait’s \nincome came from these investments. In other words, the Kuwaiti and \nother Gulf rulers had become Western capitalists themselves and not just\n oil rentiers\u2014with the same interest in not having too high a price for \noil.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIraq regarded this refusal to take steps to raise the price of oil as a \nplot to prevent it recovering from the war. Combined with their \nlong-standing claim to Kuwait as a means of obtaining a vitally-needed \nsecure trade route to the sea, this decided the Iraqi ruling class to \ntake military action. On the night of 1\/2 August 1990 Kuwait was invaded\n and later annexed. As an additional bonus, the Kuwaiti oilfields when \nadded to the Iraqi ones make Iraq potentially almost as big a producer \nsitting on as big reserves as Saudi Arabia.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why the West is going to war<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\nBush, and Thatcher who happened to be in America on a lecture tour, \nreacted quickly, issuing an ultimatum to Iraq not to move further down \nthe coast and take over the Saudi oilfields and dispatching a battle \nfleet to the Gulf for the second time in three years.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIraq probably had no intention of invading Saudi Arabia, but America had\n every interest in finding an excuse to send troops to protect the Saudi\n oilfields. Since 1950 these had been an American preserve: under an \nagreement with the King of Saudi Arabia European oil companies were \nexcluded and US ones, grouped  together as A.R.A.M.C.O., given a \nmonopoly. In preparing for war by dispatching troops to the Gulf, Bush \nis applying the policy enunciated by Carter in his January 23 1980 State\n of the Union message:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any \noutside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be \nregarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It \nwill be repelled by use of any means necessary, including military \nforce.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Gulf, he explained, was of “great strategic importance” because “it \ncontains more than two-thirds of the world’s exportable oil” and because\n the Strait of Hormuz at its mouth is “a waterway through which much of \nthe free world’s oil must flow”. At the time the immediate threat was \nseen as coming from Russia which had just invaded Afghanistan, but the \nCarter Doctrine applied equally to threats to American oil supplies from\n other states like Iran and now Iraq.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIn Britain the Sunday Times(12 August 1990), which has called for war since day one of the crisis, has been equally frank:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason why we will shortly have to go to war with \nIraq is not to free Kuwait, though that is to be desired, or to defend \nSaudi Arabia, though that is important. It is because President Saddam \nis a menace to vital Western interests in the Gulf, above all the free \nflow of oil at market prices, which is essential to the West’s \nprosperity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\nIf war breaks out in the Middle East, the issues at stake will be purely\n economic and commercial: access to the sea and a high price of oil, on \nthe one side, and control of oilfields and a low price of oil, on the \nother. Neither of which are issues justifying the shedding of a single \ndrop of working class blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Back to the History Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
November 1990, U.K. The Prussian militarist Clausewitz declared that war was “nothing but the continuation of politics by other means” . He would have been nearer the truth if he had said that war was the continuation of economics by other means. Since the onset of capitalism five hundred years ago wars have been caused…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2664,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1096","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2665,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1096\/revisions\/2665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}